NEXT Financial Group, Inc. Blog

Clients talk with their friends and family and compare their investment portfolios. The annual client meeting is a perfect time to remind the client that their personal investment portfolio is designed for their specific risk tolerance. Use a graphic illustration to highlight the planning process as well as the importance of their risk tolerance. Bring the focus back to their personal situation.

• The addition of a monthly, education-based newsletter
• Restructured websites that serve as learning instruments instead of as electronic brochures
• The investment in, or retraining of staff, to serve as “client concierge” who proactively communicate with clients more frequently
• An increase in the amount of annual goal and portfolio review

Everything starts with a vision! An integral part of reaching your goals is defining your vision for your practice in its ideal state. 4WARD offers Strategic Visionary Planning (SVP) to support you in this important step. Your Marketing Specialists have been trained to provide guidance in clearly defining your vision in numeric terms. You will receive assistance in creating strategic business and marketing plans, and we’ll help you successfully execute your chosen marketing initiatives. We have already helped over 200 NEXT reps through the SVP program and you can be next!

What are you doing to gain market share in our current environment? At its core, the real difference between advisors who are growing and those that are fighting to maintain can be boiled down to having a marketing plan and most important, executing it. If you would like to take advantage of the great opportunity to build your business, give us a call.

What is “synergy”? Marketing synergy is a powerful way to energize and extract the most value from your marketing budget, by investing in various initiatives. The results of your combined efforts will be much greater than if executed individually. When you establish your business plan at the beginning of every year, how much attention is spent on your marketing initiatives? Building brand awareness is key to the success of any company. In order to build brand awareness in your community, you must be sure that your message is being heard by your target market. This is where synergy comes into effect.

This has been a tough year for the economy. While no one likes losses, the tax rules can ease the pain a bit. You may be able to get an immediate deduction by surrendering the contract for a loss. You might lose some of the value from the loss, though, because of the 2%-of-AGI floor and the AMT. Or, you can carry over the cost basis by exchanging the annuity and letting the new contract grow back up to the original cost basis. Please remember that surrendering a contract is giving up the income guarantees and death benefit options that may be available with a particular product. Therefore, the tax considerations are just one of the many issues that must be considered when reviewing the overall performance and benefits of an individual annuity contract.

Develop an integrated marketing strategy to help you reach your desired prospects through a number of marketing channels including: direct marketing, web site information, email, and of course, seminar marketing. For example, you can use direct mail to drive traffic to your website, promote an upcoming seminar, and advertise other educational forums you will be hosting. Your message should be consistent, but you can mix up the way in which it is delivered. These strategies are designed to help you maintain contact and build relationships with prospects over time.

Evaluate the success of your marketing efforts to determine which one worked best for you. All advertising may produce a response, but what matters most is whether it effectively motivated your audience to take action. Tracking your results and refining your efforts will help you to maximize your marketing dollars. Nolan Baker, an Ohio based NEXT Rep, knows synergy is key to marketing success. He has seen great results from creating a multi-tiered marketing process that when combined, produces the greatest results. “As a financial talk show host, weekly newspaper columnist, and a regular on the local TV, I have found that the best way to master the media is to keep your marketing messages uniformed and structured. I created a daily, weekly, and monthly marketing calendar to leverage my messages across all outlets. My message is consistent across all marketing outlets. If I’m talking about retirement mistakes, I talk about those mistakes in my weekend radio show, in the newspaper, on TV, and in my email newsletter. This process creates brand awareness and drives up results. Last month, 160 prospects signed up for a seminar and of that, 49 first-time appointments were made.” By focusing on the marketing tools and analytical processes to identify your best marketing practices, your newly energized plan will see greater return on investment. 4WARD Financial Marketing is committed to helping you achieve your vision. In keeping with the NEXT culture of helping each other, any NEXT Rep who would like a sample of a monthly marketing calendar that has synergy, contact 4WARD. Call 888.224.3324 or email: support@4wardfm.com for customized support, direction and a comprehensive plan on how to put marketing synergy to work for you, and experience powerful results.

Create a comfortable setting to ask for referrals by understanding where you can find your niche and activities they enjoy. When there’s an outside correlation, the person already feels a mutual connection with you from shared interest. For instance, if your niche is retirees, you may want to market in areas where they can be found: Popular restaurants that have senior deals, Country clubs, Museums/Galleries, Antique stores, etc.

What defines a qualified prospect for you? Before you can ask for referrals, you should have a clear understanding of the types of qualified prospects you want to receive. Start creating the profile by looking at the characteristics of people you want to work with: job, income, family, etc. This can also be a complement to your clients by exemplifying that you are looking for referrals who are similar to them. In accompaniment to the client profile, you should draft and rehearse referral conversations. By creating various talking points that can launch a referral conversation, you will grow more comfortable and the conversation will come more naturally to you. Consider their personalities and different ways to open the topic. As the saying goes, “ask and you shall receive.”